I lived in Mexico for a summer back in college, and while I was there, I had two complaints about the beer: 1) In the equatorial heat, it turned to carbonated bathwater in minutes; and, 2) I could never seem to get enough lime juice down the narrow bottleneck. Then one fateful happy hour, I watched a bartender fill a glass with ice and the juice of an entire lime before he cracked a beer to top it off. Brilliant, I thought. Problem solved. And then he added salt. And Tabasco. And, finally, a few dashes from a bottle that turned out to be Worcestershire sauce. What the hell was going on here?

The bartender, amused by my ignorance, explained in very slow, deliberate Spanish that he was making something called a Michelada. In the throes of a when-in-Rome moment, I ordered one. The ice and lime do what you'd expect them to, but the hot sauce and the Worcester add a spice and depth of flavor of the sort you won't find in your typical cerveza. The salt adds…salt, which keeps you coming back for more. Click through for an unimpeachable recipe.